Illuminé . Past Meditations

Can Illuminated Manuscripts serve the modern eye?

In the series Illuminé, Diane A. Curran explores the tradition of Illuminated Manuscripts, updating it for the world of digital art.

Stretching computerized fonts to evoke the exaggerated curves of hand-wrought lettering from centuries past, she plays with the alphabet to create shadow, contrasts of color, and graphic geometries of pattern.

“Truth” (the post at left below) builds from a phrase sing with haunting notes by Grace Slick in the early days of The Jefferson Airplane. “Don’t You Want Somebody to Love?”

“Word” (the composition at right below) references the oft-quoted biblical phrase, “In the beginning was the Word...” and reminds us of how powerful a symbol that phrase remains.

Illuminated Manuscripts were more than beautifully decorated pages. They were meditations taken deep into our vision and our minds, challenging us, changing us.